After a few weeks visiting my parents at their very grownup house in Chicago, returning to my own cute but tiny and not-nearly-as-nice apartment (left) in New York was a bit of a challenge. I think my roommate and I have done a lot with fairly limited resources, but my mom’s museum-like stylings reminded me of the seemingly endless ways we could improve our own place. But while some – antique French chairs, for example – remain out of my price range, others – like switching out our crappy kitchen knobs for cute ones—are easy and affordable. After the jump, a few tips on instantly improving the look of your apartment.
1. A fresh coat of paint does a lot. If you’ve been living somewhere for a year, consider spending a weekend repainting a room or two. The supplies will be around $40 and you can probably sucker a friend into helping. My mom, an interior designer, suggests doing an accent wall, which involves painting just one wall—like the one behind the couch or your bed – a color. For renters who later have to paint back to the original color, this is a good compromise between painting everything a fun color and painting nothing at all.
![](https://thefrisky.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Painting-730x487.jpeg)
Source: DeLaune and Associates
2. Seriously, change those crappy knobs. Stores like Anthropologie and websites like eBay have awesome substitutes for the boring, junky ones that come standard in most apartments.
![](https://thefrisky.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/craappy-knobs-730x730.jpg)
Source: Amazon.com
3. If you can’t spend much on your couch and other furniture, invest in (or DIY) quirky wall art and side tables. We have a striped Ikea couch, a cheap red coffee table and cute but fairly standard book shelves. To balance out the boring, I bought a $20 side table at a secondhand shop and decoupaged it with miniature vintage posters. We also bought Bucky, a cardboard deer head, at CardBoardSafari.com and spray-painted him red to go with our color scheme. Little things like this totally tie a room together.
![](https://thefrisky.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/wall-art-730x479.png)
Source: Apartment Therapy
4. Take down or frame those posters. I don’t care how much you love whatever old movie it is you love, that crappy movie poster has no business on your walls unless it’s in a frame. You don’t have to spend a ton on a frame, but a flimsy, junky one looks almost as bad as the poster alone, so keep that in mind, please.
![](https://thefrisky.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Put-up-Posters-Step-730x548.jpg)
Source: wikiHow
5. You’d be stunned by the difference a decent-looking garbage can makes in a kitchen. Ditto for a fun shower curtain (see our shopping guide) and cute soap dish/toothbrush cup in the bathroom. Just saying …
![](https://thefrisky.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/simple-human-lede-730x383.jpg)
Source: New York Magazine
Any other ideas?
Original by: Lily Q